Responses from those who read the spiked 7/24 column

1- I liked it. It may be irreverent, but it's not objectionable (from local Jew)

2- I love it! ...particularly:

People sometimes ask the question “What would Jesus do?” I’m not sure I know the answer, but two guesses relative to what he wouldn’t do are “buy a Hummer, and pack heat.” (from local Jew) But then it was followed the next day by:

2a- Back to the issue of whether or not your column should have been printed in the Voice/Herald, or any Jewish publication. As I emailed you upon first reading, I loved it. But I have read it several times more and, in spite of my admiration of your column, I find myself gradually coming around to the conclusion that the right decision was made not to publish it in a Jewish outlet. I know you worked hard to inoculate yourself from criticism by establishing your own Christian creds, so coming from you it would not be offensive. Unfortunately, the Voice/Herald cannot slip on the same robe. It is a Jewish organ, and to publish a column critical of a Christian cleric for his faulty interpretations of Christian teachings is not in good taste, and could easily offend the Christian partner in a Jewish/Christian mixed marriage. It could also open the paper up to criticism from the Christian community.

On the other hand, if you were commenting on a Christian cleric's activities or pronouncements which affected Jewish interests or were directed in any way at the Jewish people, that would be another story. (No pun intended.) Fortunately, thank g-d, that is not the case here. Be comforted that you still wrote a brilliant piece. You might consider re-writing it for submission as a letter to the editor or guest column to the ProJo or the CSM epaper, where it would have even more validity and impact. Then, all your friends on your email list will know the true identity of the author. (If they hadn't already figured it out.)

3- In response to your colleague: "Of course this should be printed. There are three bureaucratic entities involved - the United States government, Judaism and Christianity. The U.S. government supports free speech and is founded upon working through dissent. In the Jewish tradition, scholars constantly disagree to get a more understandable solutiuon. In fact, in the Old Testament, man is allowed to argue with God (and win!). Christianity, unfortunately, survives purely on faith and following blindly without questioning. If you want to be a better Christian, perhaps the article is too blasphemous. But I don't think that is your intent." (from a distant Jew)

4- Read the article...a good one... (from a local Catholic)

5- I was raised a Christian and still consider myself to be one based on my understanding of the teachings although many within the church would not consider me so. In my view this is exactly the kind of article which should appear in a religious publication be it Jewish, Christian or any other faith. It is difficult to understand the editor's concern. My advice to editor ..."Be not afraid...". My advice to the writer ... submit the offending piece to the New York Times. (from a local Protestant)

6- I would not print the column. I would suspect many Christians would be insulted. The gun bearing pastor does not speak for all Christians. There is also a distinction between not believing and disbelieving. Last, it just doesn't do the Jewish community any good. So, no, I would not print it. (from a local Jew)

7- I liked the column, but then I'm not Christian, Jew, Muslim, or even, as I tell my students, a reformed Druid. I do believe, however, that we (whoever that may be) are allowing the fundamentalist jerks of the world freedom to publish their rants while we (again?) restrain ourselves, or are forced to by editors real and metaphorical. It's time that we use our power to oppose sloppy thinking. And if the 2nd amendment won't allow us to ban guns, then let's ban the bullets! (from a distant person born Christian)

8- I don't understand why the article wasn't printed. It reminds me of an editorial (for lack of a better word) that was printed in The Walrus a couple of years ago. Unfortunately, I don't remember the writer's name, but -- if I recall correctly -- he was posing as a conservative Christian arms enthusiast who believed that God was cool with guns. To support his theory, he alluded to the wisdom enshrined in a favourite Country and Western song: "His Finger's on Your Trigger (And It's Itchier Than Hell). "If I weren't so lazy, I'd try to track it down (the article -- not the song). (from a distant Protestant)

9- Hard to know what the Jewish press would have done, but I'd like believe (in fact I do believe) it would have been printed. I cannot for the life of me see anything unprintable in this. (from a local Jew)

10- Mmmn. Maybe you should try a Christian paper? I'm thinking there must be still be a few surviving Jesuits on the left side/social justice focused part of the Catholic church; maybe they have a good underground paper.

11- I don’t see why this column was nixed. For my part, this is unwarranted censorship which should especially concern Jewish newspapers. Where is your friend located on the West coast? LA, SF, Seattle? What newspaper. The curious want to know. Maybe even his name. (from a distant Jew)

12- My 2 cents. The editor used good sense. It is a fine article for a secular paper like the NY Times but not for a Jewish community paper. (from a local Jew)

13- As for your friend's article I agree with the editor that pulled it out of a Jewish paper
1) Why should a Jewish paper make such a big deal about Christian ethics. I am sure there are wiser Rabbis that can refute their beliefs better than the writer.

2)Of what interest is there for Jews to learn about the teachings of Jesus in a Jewish newspaper ?

3) and finally coming from the South (Florida ) I can see no harm in taking guns to Church [ but not the Synagogue ] The overwhelming number of gun-slingers are Goyim and so you need guns to go to church in the South (from a distant Jew)

14- After having read this, I enjoyed today's homily even more than usual and as best as I could keeping my 22 month old daughter entertained in the church's reading room. Our priest, a caring and thoughtful Pole with a thick accent, spoke about vocations, and that the basis of all vocations was found, among other places, in the most often quoted prayer of St. Francis of Assisi "Lord, make me an instrument of your peace." He said the entire prayer for those of us, such as myself, who were in need of a refresher, which made the message all the more powerful, and reminded me of my theology classes that I took at Providence College.
Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
In part I was also struck by the Beatitudes, which I sang in Latin several months ago during chapel service. They are increasingly a forgotten piece of faith, perhaps because of their simplicity. They do not mince words and there is no room for interpretation and are as close to the original sayings of Jesus and the Q document as biblical studies can achieve.

It is in this that I found the written piece so valuable, for it reminds me of how ever present the forces within my own religion, and all religions, have the potential to be so wrong, destructive and hateful. (I have always found it a paradox that we, the collective mob we, are fighting fundamentalists in Iraq and Afghanistan while fomenting fundamentalist behavior here with our own faiths.)

Any article which challenges the paths of fundamentalist religion should be welcomed. I have encountered in even here in New England and found it truly disturbing; the collecting of ammunition, stock piling weapons, voices of hatred against "Osama Obama." Truly disturbing; but perhaps a prelude of the next presidential race? Of course, it is here in this point of depressing thinking and forshadowing that the Beatitudes and the prayer of Saint Francis consoles me.

It should have been printed, but that is coming from me, a liberal Catholic whose grandparents subscribed to "The Catholic Worker" and voted the progressive ticket.

Thank you for sending this along,

15- It was perhaps a little bit of a controversial article - maybe that’s why the editor declined to publish it. It really called to light the level of hypocrisy and insanity reached by the fundamentalist Christian right. It appealed to me - even though I am a Christian - albeit a "bad" Christian who doesn’t believe in the historical accuracy of the bible but rather that the teachings are sound and true. Does the article maybe appeal to the wrong audience? Is it too "left" leaning?

Liberals as Fascist? Bah, nonsense!

Recently I was told to read Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism so that I would know the truth at last. Well, I’ve looked at it and at the National Review on line and seen the video of Goldberg speaking at the Heritage Foundation and I am convinced. The right wing is in panic mode.

Until recently Carl Rove was predicting a permanent Republican majority. But then George W. Bush happened and most of the people weren’t fooled most of the time anymore. Now Republicans have lost the House, the Senate, the White House and are within a confirmation of losing their majority on the Supreme Court. Republicans now hold only 22 governorships and in Rhode Island no Republican currently seems willing to run.

Rather than asking themselves what went wrong, the radical right now in control of the party that once boasted of Javits and Rockefeller and Eisenhower, Edward Brooke and the two Chafees, is constantly in attack mode. I’m reminded of French general Robert Nivelle before his disastrous assault on unassailable German lines in April 1917. When asked how he intended to break through, he responded with “Violence, brutality, rapidity” to which some had added stupidity. Attack is all they know. Goldberg’s nonsense is just another manifestation of the Nivelle mentality.

In a nutshell, Goldberg argues that as Hitler and Mussolini started out as Socialists, their fascism retained Socialist elements shared by modern Liberals. Nazis and Fascists had some progressive social ideas, it is true, but that is not what defined them. Liberalism comes from the Latin for free; it has a long tradition from at least the writings of John Locke and Roger Williams. Liberals believe that all men are created equal; conservatives of the south, at least, and Nazis and Fascists in Europe, disagree; they believe that there is a superior race; they take Darwin’s concepts and distort them to “prove” the superiority of our race (whoever “our” is) over all others. In America this was justification for segregation disguised as an appeal to states’ rights. In 1980 Ronald Reagan, the paragon of the American conservative movement opened his presidential candidacy by going to Mississippi, to the very neighborhood where Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner were brutally murdered because they were black and white trying to register black voters. He chose to announce there, there of all places, that “I believe in states’ rights ... I believe we have distorted the balance of our government today by giving powers that were never intended to be given in the Constitution to that federal establishment.” And then later as president he went to Bitburg cemetery and paid homage to Nazi soldiers buried there. Liberals were outraged; nevertheless Reagan said of the German war dead, “They were victims, just as surely as the victims in the concentration camps,” a visit to which he chose not to make.

Goldberg clouds his case with so many irrelevancies and unsubstantiated innuendos that I cannot cover them all in the 700 words allotted me. But race, race won’t go away. The Nazis were racists and so were the conservatives whose dogs attacked protesters in Mississippi and Alabama; when president Johnson signed the 1964 civil rights act he knew that we was signing away the south for generations, but he did it anyway and in 1968 Nixon’s Southern Strategy brought him to the White House as surely as the Willy Horton advertisement swept in the first president Bush in 1988.

Goldberg tries to separate conservatives from Nazis by suggesting that conservatives don’t send inferior races to their deaths. That’s true; so far. (See how innuendo works? Like that.)

They used to call Liberals commie pinkos; during the recent election they tried to make us congruent with terrorists; that didn’t work, so now they seek the roots of Liberalism in fascism. Hitler tried to end Christianity and substitute Teutonic gods, Goldberg informs. Do any of the Liberals you know worship Thor? But many of my liberal friends attend church or synagogue; Hitler was in favor of euthanasia. Are liberals? None that I know of. Who is against gay rights, Nazis, yes; conservatives, yes; liberals, no.

It’s not only the Nazis use the big lie technique.

This column was spiked. I like it though

If you can believe it, I’m an even worse Christian than I am a bad Jew. This may take some explaining. I’m a bad Jew despite going to shul twice a day, seven days a week to say kaddish for my father, and my long-suffering wife and I maintain a kosher home, and she lights candles and I say the Shabbat blessings, but I don’t for a moment believe that any of it is ordained by God, the master of the universe (the diameter of which is roughly 27 billion light years). I’m a worse Christian because even though I’ve read the New Testament and have studied the beliefs of Catholics and a variety of Protestants past and present, and while I believe that much good can be found coming from the mouth of Jesus, especially from the Sermon on the Mount, and that Christianity, like the ancient Greeks and Jews is a cornerstone of western civilization, I’ve not been baptized, I don’t go to church, and I don’t believe that Jesus is God or the Second Person of the Trinity made flesh, or a prophet.

The Socialist in my DNA loves the statement that Jesus makes to a rich man who wants to know how to achieve eternal life. “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” The man is naturally hesitant and Jesus tells him that “...I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” Take that, you greedy Wall Street S.O.Bs!

But it’s the Sermon on the Mount that I want to discuss in relation to some current events. He begins: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”

Not bad, eh? So I begin to wonder. Who are these peacemakers? Seems obvious on the surface, but to some, at least there is confusion. Let me take you from the mountain in the Holy land to Leitchfield, Kentucky. In that unholy land the pastor of the New Bethel church, the Rev. Ken Pagano, staged what the Christian Science Monitor dubbed “a Saturday night special.” People were invited to attend a special event described as “not a service” at his church bringing their unloaded guns with them. I cannot explain why the pistol-packing-preacher insisted on this. In fact, one member of the audience expressed the fear that the Obama administration, even if it didn’t take away guns would limit access to bullets. Sweet Jesus, say it ain’t so. No bullets? How can we protect ourselves? Can you imagine such mishagas is a civilized country, like England or France?

In perusing the web for stories on this event I saw this caption on msnbc.com: “About 200 church members brought their unloaded handguns for a one-day celebration of the Second Amendment which stipulates the right to bear arms.” I wonder if any of these bible thumpers have read either the bible or the Constitution. When Jesus said “Blessed are the peacemakers” I’m pretty sure he didn’t mean the Colt .45; when the founders wrote the Second Amendment they stipulated that the right to bear arms was to maintain a well regulated militia. Today we call the militia the National Guard and we supply it with tanks and machine guns. And the Christian bible? Need I repeat the Beatitudes above? People sometimes ask the question “What would Jesus do?” I’m not sure I know the answer, but two guesses relative to what he wouldn’t do are “buy a Hummer, and pack heat.” Rev. Pagano and his flock are fundamentalists when it comes to their misunderstanding of the Constitution while the words of Jesus they are willing to ignore completely. I began by saying that I was an even worse Christian than I am a Jew. Well, maybe the Rev. Pagano is an even worse Christian than I am.